The present invention relates in general to network communication devices. In particular, the present invention relates to a memory exceed notice for a network communication device.
Wireless communication devices exist which are capable of receiving messages from a network and storing the received messages in a memory of the device. For example, a paging receiver receives a paging message from a paging terminal and the message may be stored in a memory of the paging receiver. Similarly, a wireless mobile telephone which operates in accordance with TIA/EIA Interim Standard IS-136.1, 800 MHz TDMA Cellularxe2x80x94Radio Interfacexe2x80x94Mobile Stationxe2x80x94Base Station Compatibility Digitalxe2x80x94Control Channel, December 1994, Telecommunications Industry Association, (hereinafter referred to as xe2x80x9cIS-136xe2x80x9d), which is incorporated herein by reference, is capable of receiving short message service (xe2x80x9cSMSxe2x80x9d) messages through the wireless telephone network. An SMS message is a textual message of a maximum of 256 characters. Upon receipt of the SMS message, the mobile telephone may store the message in a memory of the mobile telephone.
After a message is stored in a memory of a wireless communication device, a user of the device may display the messages on a display screen of the device. After reading the message, the user may delete the message, thereby making room in memory for additional messages, or the user may desire to leave the message stored in memory for further recall. Since the memory unit of a wireless communication device is of finite size, at some point the memory will fill with messages such that there is insufficient capacity to store additional messages. Such undeliverable additional messages will remain stored in the network. The undeliverable messages may be sent to the wireless communication device periodically until there is sufficient capacity to store the additional messages in the memory of the wireless communication device.
If there are no additional messages in the network waiting to be delivered, then there is no disadvantage to leaving all messages stored in the memory of the wireless communication device, even if the memory is full to capacity. In fact, leaving the messages stored in memory may be desirable such that the user can recall the messages at a later time. However, if there are messages waiting in the network waiting to be delivered, then such messages cannot be delivered until one or more stored messages are deleted from the wireless communication device memory in order to make room for new messages.
While it is known to provide a memory full indication for a device, such a memory full indicator only indicates that a memory is full and that no further information may be stored in the memory. However, in the messaging context, such a memory full indicator presents the user of a messaging device with incomplete information. The user will know that the memory is full but the user will not know if there are additional messages waiting to be delivered. Thus, even if the user is aware that the memory is full, the user may still want to keep all messages stored in memory for later retrieval. If there are no messages waiting to be sent in the network, then this does not present a problem. However, if there are additional messages waiting to be sent, the user may want to delete older messages to make room for newer messages. Thus, merely providing a memory full indicator presents the user of a messaging device with incomplete information.
The present invention provides a wireless communication device comprising a memory exceed indicator, and a method for operation of such a device, for indicating that a message is being stored in a network and that a memory unit of the wireless communication device contains insufficient memory to receive and store that message.
The wireless communication device receives a message from a network and determines whether it has sufficient memory to store the message. If there is insufficient memory to store the message, the wireless communication device activates a memory exceed indicator indicating that a message is waiting in the network but that the message cannot be received and stored by the device due to insufficient memory. A user may then delete some messages which are stored in the device""s memory thus making room for the additional message. If the message is later resent to the device, the device will determine that there is sufficient memory to store the message. The message will be stored in memory and the memory exceed indicator will be deactivated. In alternate embodiments, the memory exceed indicator may be deactivated when messages are deleted from the memory or upon power-up of the wireless communication device.
Thus, the present invention provides an improved wireless communication device and method for operation. As described above, if the memory of a wireless communication device is full, it may be desirable to leave all messages stored in the memory so that a user of the device may retrieve the stored messages. If there are no undeliverable messages in the network waiting to be sent to the device, then there is no disadvantage to having a full memory. However, if there are messages waiting in the network, it is desirable to delete one or more messages from the memory of the device in order to make room for the new messages. By providing a user with an indication that there are undeliverable messages waiting in the network, the memory exceed indicator in accordance with the present invention provides the information necessary to allow the user to more appropriately manage the memory of the device.